The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1887-03-24
ENGLISH PENNY-A-LINERs.
How They Exc Out a Miserable Exist
ence in London.

How They Exc Out a Miserable Exist
ence in London.
Although this is the best season of the
year for the penny-a-liner, met one OF
the craft the other day, whom 1 had
known under happier circumstances, on
the verge of starvation, and from what ne
told me of the profession / take it that
''penny-a- hning'' is not really so profit
able business-in London, anyhoW-as
poesy.
Penny-a-Ening is one of those profess
sion, the embarkation upon which does
not involve the expenditure of any very
large amount of capital-au that IS needed
for a start being a certain number OF
''f1imsies'' and 'sblacks,' with vulcanite
''plate'' and an agate ''stylo." Armed
with these, an ability to write more or less
legibly, and q smattering Of the queen s
English very little of the latter being re-
quire6, the embryo liner may set forth
in quest of worlds-I had almost said
wOrds-to conquer. He must not be dis
appointed at discovering many IN the neld
before him, nor at his earlier attempts
finding their way into the sub-edltors' w.
| p. b., which annually receives so manJ'
miles of what the author regarded as
most interesting copy" London is liz
orally overrun with these free lances of
the press, who are, to a large extent, re-
sponsible for the gray hairs and prema
ture decay of assistant editors. All is fish
which comes to the liners net, and there
are few public events which-tO vary the
metaphor-do not bring griSt to his mill.
Fatal accidents, sensational suicides, hor-
rible murders, speeches by prominent
men, fires, or las he invariably calls
them confiagratiOns--all are material for
the style and the film
Great is the liner where inqueStS are
concerned. In most cases he follows one
| particular coroner and 'Ssstens to case after
case for week after week, in the full and
certain conviction that sooner or later he
will get the temporary monopoly of some
thing very startling or horrible. London
is too big a city for the regular staff of
any paper to properly cover and all the
journals of the metropolis are more or
less dependent upon the penny a-hner,
who occasionally shamefully imposes upon
the sub-editor when news is scarce and
money scarcer.
Liners may be divided into two classes:
First, those who are regularlyengagedu upon
the staff Of small suburban paper, and who
exc out the miserable stipends which local
London prOprietors regard as sufficient by
thinning anything of sufficient import
ance for the big dailies which they may
happen to come across in their own dis
trict. These may be regarded as the more
respectable half of the profession. The
somewhat shadier portion is composed OF
out-at-elbows gentlemen, broken down
hacks, men dismissed for drunkenness
from the higher walks of journalism, etc. /;
men to whom the non-insertiOn of a
s'par." means absolute starvation, and it
is small wonder that sub-editors are now
and then ''llad." A party of four or five
liners gather together in a bar parlor, and
report their own vapOrings over their
pipes and whisky as ''an important politi-
cal gatherings" and quite recently the
dead body of a man was several times
found hanging in one of our parks, which
corpse was never discovered by the park
rangers or police. Sunday papers go in
largely for inquests, and it would not do
for too close an inquiry to be made into
ssome of the particulars reported as having
taken place yesterday" while the man
ner in which liners try to ''run'' one an
other after something of the kind is not a
little diverting. The rule of most papers
is, first come first served; but some subs
have their favorites, who are the envy of
their less fortunate brethren.-COr. Phila-
delphia Telegraph.